


Two wrongs can make a riot

by Jennichi



Series: Bancoran/Maraich 30 Kisses Challenge [4]
Category: Patalliro!
Genre: 30 Kisses Challenge, Bad Puns, M/M, Theme #2 news / letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 04:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennichi/pseuds/Jennichi
Summary: Other people have a dislike for Mondays. Bancoran considers Mondays wrongly maligned. The real bastards, he will tell you, are Wednesdays. Nothing good ever happens on a Wednesday.





	Two wrongs can make a riot

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt to include Patarillo, which makes for a very odd story. Also, my inner geologist is cringing. Any funny puns are obviously not my own. I apologize for this one because an attempt to bring visual humor over into written is usually going to be a failure. I wanted to try, since what makes Patarillo such a great series is its off-the-wall humor. I didn't manage it, but, well, after all that work I had to post it anyway. (And as a final caveat, I'd like to mention that I wrote most of this after a 13 hour plane ride. If nothing else explains it, that just might.)
> 
> ETA: All these years later, I'm sure the official spellings of proper nouns are going to be strange and different from the ones we used 14 years ago. But trying to go through and replace things will probably just end up with a mess, so take them as they come, please.

When the king of Marinera wanted the services of MI6, he could do one of many things. He often called Bancoran direct, or relayed his wishes through the head office. Sometimes he would simply show up unannounced. His favorite method was parachuting onto British soil.

Even when taking all of this into account, the events of Wednesday evening were Very Unusual indeed.

It started—as these things often do—with a letter. To be specific, a letter inside of a completely unmarked envelope which had somehow found its way into Bancoran’s post box. Maraich found it mixed in with the regular post, which consisted of unremarkable billing statements and unwanted adverts. Giving the young man credit, he set it out on the hall table and ignored it for an entire twenty minutes before his curiosity got the better of him.

At first he tried non-intrusive methods: he held it up to a light, but the paper was too thick; he shook it, but there was nothing of any weight to rattle. With each failure he became more determined to know what the envelope contained, so naturally he tried ironing off the paste next and gained a burn on his little finger for his pains. He finally succeeded in prying it open with one of his thinnest stilettos.

  

> _Dearest Malaysia, Maribell, Morris...._

  

“Maraich!” he muttered to himself. 

  

> _Maraich,_
> 
> _Why, oh why, have you been absent so long? I’ve got a bit of a puzzle for you, something to get your puzzler going. Come and visit! Now!_
> 
>  __
> 
> __
> 
> _Patarillo VIII, King of Marinera_

  

It was a most unsatisfying success.

  

* * *

  

Before we forget to add the setting, let me lay things out for you. On this particular Wednesday, it was raining. Nothing exciting, no roiling black clouds or rushing winds, just that steady drizzle that makes you feel as if it has been raining since the Dawn of Time and will continue until the entire universe is sucked inwards to implode in the Big Whimper. It was that invasive haze of wetness that ignores the laws of gravity and seems to float up from the pavement to attack you from directions which you least expect; the kind that makes an umbrella superfluous.

Which explains why Bancoran, always impeccable, was completely coated by his damp, outrageously long fall of hair when he walked in the door to his apartments. He peeled off his gloves with a moue of distaste and hung his rain-beaded coat on the rack. It was only then that his mind, still occupied by office matters, finally registered the unusual breeze. His apartments, you see, were gone. Oh, there was a door, and a front hall, a coat-rack and small table, but then it simply ended. It was as if someone had come along and cut off the back end of the building with an enormous pair of scissors. This is, of course, ridiculous.

“Maraich!”

There was no reply to his calls, and an absence of solid walls in a space where they had always existed with convincing solidity before. Our intrepid major didn’t seem flustered. He ran his eye idly over the sheared off walls, studying the neatly cut wires and plaster.

_Interesting._

Other people have a dislike for Mondays. Bancoran considers Mondays wrongly maligned. The real bastards, he will tell you, are Wednesdays. Nothing good ever happens on a Wednesday.

His first instinct was to call Patarillo, because whenever something improbable happens to Bancoran it is the boy-king’s fault. Sometimes instincts must bow to protocol, however, and although he had never encountered an action plan for the disappearance of half of an officer’s house before, he suspected that he should report in to the office first.

Sanders was frighteningly calm about the whole situation. “I see,” he said. “Then I suppose you’ll be wanting to take a holiday tomorrow to sort things out.”

Bancoran scowled at the phone, but didn’t dare to let lose his rage— not in his neighbor’s small, homely kitchen. “I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a holiday, Sir.” He could feel his blood pressure rising. “It’s probably related to that little idiot.”

His superior agreed, but was noncommittal. It all amounted to a tacit order to ‘find out’.

  

* * *

  

There was a time when Maraich hated Bancoran. He had been ordered to kill Bancoran, and Bancoran had failed to oblige him and die. Now, assassination is not a profession where you make things personal. You find the target, you take it down, you move on. But Maraich was never a professional in the institutionalized sense of the word. He was a hot-blooded young man, and failure hurt him deeply.

Which is why it all makes sense that Maraich fell in love with Bancoran. Consider: You cannot triumph— Is it fault in you, or skill in him?

In Bancoran’s case, skill was always in great supply.

So maybe we can lay the cause on Bancoran’s fabled eye, or maybe on his skills, but we can’t leave it there. Because, you see, love and lust are very different things. Bancoran knows it; it’s how he stays true to Maraich without staying celibate.

  

* * *

  

Switching scenes, flashing across space, and maybe a little time. Here is a charming island, the kind that graces the front of vacation pamphlets and the windows of travel bureaus. Mountains and forests, lakes and rivers, it is the island of eternal spring— Marinera.

Zoom in a little and we can see the residence of the king, the usual medieval structure complete with modern conveniences. Look in that window, the one with all of the men in the strangely shaped wigs. They look upset, or as upset as they can be behind their makeup and disguises. Peas in a pod, these men, each made up to look exactly like the others. They’re moving in circles, stirred into uproar. No doubt it’s another joke of Patarillo’s.

The king is dancing around, perching for a moment on the table, then running over to lean dangerously far out of the open window. He is pleased; his plan is going well.

This, then, was the state in Marinera late on Wednesday night when Bancoran landed. He didn’t waste any time, going straight to the most probable culprit.

“Patarillo! Where is my house?” He was on the edge of exasperation already, and that worried him, because he knew this conversation was going to test his patience.

The boy-king was delighted. “Bancoran, my love!” He flutters his lashes in a disturbing manner. “Did you know that most people consider spiders to be insects? But spiders have eight legs!”

“Which has nothing to do with me. Where is my house?”

“Your house? YOUR HOUSE? ….No idea.” A fake mustache appeared from some hidden pocket, and he stuck it to his chubby face. “I hear people are trying to recapture the past. They’re using stone tools now in medical operations.”

Bancoran was intrigued in spite of himself. “Stone tools?”

“Ob _sid_ ian. It’s everywhere these days. Very in _sid_ ious.”

That earned him an ungentle slap on the back of his head. “Are you listening?” Bancoran demanded. “My apartment is gone. What did you do with it?”

Patarillo paused, and a sly look appeared on his face. “Gone, you say? Hummmm….”

One of the men in the strange makeup, one of the prince’s bodyguards, leaned in to make a suggestion. “Did you check for termites?”

The major resolutely ignored him and kept his eyes on the king, who was beginning to scurry out of the room. Out of ideas, Bancoran followed him. They ran through beautifully decorated halls which Bancoran suspected showed the subdued taste of Patarillo’s mother. The king glanced back over his shoulder, his new mustache twitching. “I’ve been having problems with things like that.”

“Things like what?”

“The kind of things that are like that thing.”

“What kind of things that are like that thing?”

“The kind of things that are like the things that are like that thing.”

“What—Never mind.” Bancoran shook his head. “Cut it out. What problem?”

It was at that moment that they reached the end of the hall. There was no doubt about it, for first there was wall, and then there was… nothing. It was now a very familiar situation for Bancoran. Patarillo was scowling. “Like this, right?”

“What happened?”

“I’ve no idea,” Patarillo replied. “But Himalaya’s been working on it.”

“The mountains?”

“No.” His face scrunched in thought. “Reich? Maranda?”

A voice drifted out of the garden. “ _Maraich_ , you cretin!”

_Ah, Maraich. I should have known I’d find him here._ Perhaps he had.

  

* * *

  

Once, Maraich admitted to a slight, infinitesimal smidgeon of affection for Patarillo. Something to do with their first meeting being partially on his account.

“Ah, when you tried to garrote me with your necklace and then gut me with your knife,” Bancoran had said. “Fond memories indeed.”

Of course, there was what followed after his capture, Maraich had continued with a flirtatious half-smile. When he smiled like that, Bancoran could forgive him anything. Those curving lips begged to be kissed, and he was more than willing to comply.

Which led to other things, of course.

He loved those little gasps the best.

  

* * *

  

Maraich emerged from deep in the garden, his slim form weaving between the shrubbery. The garden was a quick walk from where Patarillo and Bancoran were standing, what with the disappearance of the hall. The young man stepped through the invisible line that marked the end and clicked towards them in his high-heeled boots.

“There are other pieces missing,” he told Bancoran. “Bits of the diamond storage buildings as well, but nothing taken.”

The major looked down at the king. “And you have no idea what might have done this? Why here? Why my apartment?”

Maraich was surprised. “What?”

“We are missing an apartment.”

The assassin’s eyes narrowed. “It was fine when I left. Around three,” he added for clarity.

“Well, well,” Patarillo said. “Terrible, terrible. Hm, hm. A man's home is his castle, in a _manor_ of speaking.”

“He knows something,” Maraich said.

Patarillo snatched his mustache off and frowned at them. He was rarely serious, but when he was Bancoran braced himself for brilliance or supreme idiocy. It seemed he was about to gift them with one or the other. “It could be,” he paused and the two men leaned forward, “the giant scissors.”

Maraich slumped down and Bancoran thumped the king over the head with a fist that itched to do more damage. “Idiot!”

You see, their problem was, they couldn’t see words the way they should. If they could see words, they would know that what Patarillo actually said was “the Giant Scissors”, and perhaps realized the significance.

Not very long ago at all, Marinera had found a particularly rich vein of diamonds, and those diamonds were of an unusually hard consistency. So hard, in fact, that the refinery was having difficulties shaping the raw diamonds into the final products that were so prized. This problem was duly relayed to Patarillo’s bodyguard, and then to the king himself. Unfortunately, it fired off neurons in the king’s strange, computer-like brain. Before anyone knew it, he had created the Ultimate Cutting Tool, and then decided it was too small to be impressive, which led to the Giant Scissors.

The Giant Scissors had a mind of their own, and had disappeared on an otherwise uneventful Thursday. There wasn’t much hue or cry over them, because by then they had been relegated to a storage room and forgotten. Until now.

Now Patarillo gathered his onion-headed army together and explained the situation. His bodyguard had long ago learned to deal with their ruler’s rogue experiments, and they took the news calmly. Number 15 suggested informing the major, but the others considered it a bad idea. Number 1 got them divided into work forces to search for and capture the Giant Scissors, as well as to research why the pieces of building were missing and where they might be now.

Being seasoned experts, they had the problem solved and pieces of buildings replaced before nightfall. They were also the only ones satisfied with the outcome. Patarillo was annoyed that he hadn’t had a chance to have any fun, and the British agents were displeased to be returning home without any real answers.

So it goes. Perhaps the most significant result was Bancoran’s increased dislike of Wednesdays.


End file.
